April 15, 2020 09:48 
One of the important players in the market of public water fountains in Italy, constantly expanding throughout Europe, Mondialacqua SRL, whose majority shareholder is the American group Culligan Water, obtained by the decision of the Bucharest Court of Appeal the cancellation a utility model of a competitor.
bpv Grigorescu Ștefănică represented Mondialacqua SRL and won the litigation against a competitor who registered, in 2012, a utility model for a public water fountain with characteristics similar to the product marketed by the law firm client since the early 2000s. On the Romanian market Mondialacqua SRL sells public water fountains under the brand Frizzy.
In a first stage, OSIM canceled the utility module registered by the competitor of Mondialacqua SRL. Subsequently, the Bucharest Court admitted the contestation of the client's competitor against the OSIM decision. In the last stage, the Bucharest Court of Appeal decided that it is necessary to cancel the utility model registered by Mondialacqua’s competitor.
The team of lawyers who represented the interests of Mondialacqua SRL, was coordinated by Daniel Ștefănică (Partner Lawyer), were Raluca Marcu (Senior Coordinating Lawyer) and Serban Dumitrescu (Senior Lawyer).
“The litigation was provocative considering that it is the first litigation in Romania that aims to annul a utility model. From this perspective, the difficulty of the dispute was also that there is no case law on this subject, which led to the need to provide the court with an adequate and accurate interpretation of the legal provisions on the utility model in the broad context of the regulations on inventions. At the same time, the litigation was requesting considering that it extended over a period of almost 5 years and two complex surveys were administered, in substance and appeal. Last but not least, we are looking forward to the decision of the Bucharest Court of Appeal to see what is the beginning direction regarding the jurisprudential orientation. It is foreseeable that the court will also state in a matter debated by the parties: it is necessary, in the case of a utility model, the existence of a minimal inventive activity, much diminished by reference to patents, but which cannot be reduced to a simple juxtaposition of pre-existing elements that do not generate a new effect ”stated Daniel Stefanica.
